


Tangled in Traps

by yersifanel



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Experimentation, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 04:06:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yersifanel/pseuds/yersifanel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While investigating a new menace with the Avengers, Thor finds his brother imprisoned and being used for the enemy's advantage against his will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tangled in Traps

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://norsekink.livejournal.com/8802.html?thread=17837666#t17837666) at the norsekink.  
> Also, I apologize in advance for any errors you may find; English is not my first language.

They were celebrating, he could tell. The noises that reached him were distorted by his now ambiguous perception. Whatever they forced into his blood stream he could fight no longer and he faded little by little.

When they reached into the spark that constantly burns inside him and _pulled_ , he had no voice to scream, so he closed his eyes and enclosed himself into the darkness corner of his mind, where no one could reach him, not even the pain.

Or so he thought. 

\---

It didn't came out of nowhere, the enemy actually made its way into light slowly but firmly and by the time SHIELD set their eyes on them, they already were a threat.

When menace rose against the world, SHIELD fought back but after a few months of confrontation, The Avengers were called to step in, for the enemy's power had increased, their magnitude now a bigger threat.

Their weapons had an incredible power of destruction and it was difficult to reach proper conclusion of what exactly this enemy organization was doing in order to fabricate them.

Fury informed them that they work under a socket company named InnerVision, the various operations of infiltration under SHIELD's agents were able to make the proper connection, there's was no doubt that the enemy was behind that fake name.

Their mistake was messing with Stark Industries. They tried to reach old weapons prototypes that were cancelled after Tony's incident in Afghanistan. When Tony confirmed this incident with SHIELD the final link was set and the operation set in motion.

According to Tony's information, they required something very powerful to produce such amount of weapons, so once their power source was shut down, taking down the rest of the operation shouldn't be a problem.

It was Natasha's skills as a spy what gave them the location of InnerVision's main base. From the outside it was simple, but in the inside the place was enormous, all of it in underground levels, and their power source was, of course, in the very last level, heavily guarded and almost unreachable. 

_Almost_ being the key word.

The mission required the team to split up in order to cover more territory, so they did. Clint and Natasha were to find the power source of the place and shut it down; Thor was to go along them in case the raw strength of the god was required.

Level by level, the subterranean base was like a maze, each corridor looked the same, but they managed to sneak around without being seen by the guards that hurried to the upper levels, were Iron Man and Captain America were creating the perfect distraction.

Thor felt more than a little stressed to be in the "subtle" part of the job, for it was not something he was good at, but he was ready to give Natasha and Clint the required backup at any minute, so he walked behind then, ready to go against anything or anyone suspicions enough.

Clint's arrows got rid of the guards far before them while Thor's strength took care of those guarding the large and heave looking door.

"Agent Hill, Bruce, do you copy?" Natasha asked through their intercom "I think this is it," Natasha was working on the code for the door to open for them.

"I'm sending you the data required data to crack that thing open," Maria replied throw the intercom. 

"There should me more guards inside, be careful." Bruce added, he stood behind as backup, but he was just as worried as the others.

"Got it."

Thor was tempted to smash the door with Mjölnir but Natasha's abilities once again proved to be the best. 

Once their got a clear view of the room, Clint did his part, taking down guards and scientists with special arrows to not kill them but knock them out.

The room was enormous and at its center, from floor to ceiling a tree like machine stood before them. Hundreds of cables extended from the top part of the machine towards different consoles and connections all around the room, while around the main frame a pale green light pulsed.

It was Clint who saw the machine with detail first and almost dropped the arrow he had ready to shoot, he frowned in confusion.

"Nat...!" he whispered with urgency but Natasha had seen it too and the weary look she was giving Thor told Clint their friend was aware of the situation as well.

In the center of the room, suspended by hundreds of cables and restrained against the resembled metal tree was a person, and not any person; they were looking at Loki, but that was not what raised their wary feelings, it was the whole extended of how he was in such positions, for it was clear the god of mischief was not there willing.

"Brother!"

Thor was in the center of the room in a second, looking around trying to comprehend what he was seeing. He raised Mjölnir to strike but Natasha quickly placed a hand on his arm to stop him.

"Wait Thor, look!"

Loki's eyes were closed, his chin almost touching his chest as he hung by the bizarre structure, nothing covering his body, allowing them to see the stage in which he was held.

There were cables embedded in his skin all over him, three in the back of each hand, two in each side of his temples, more in the back of his neck and all down his spine.

Clint was the first in understand the situation and voiced it before the two of them, his rapid and trained eyes able to see to where all those connections reached and getting an idea of its propose.

"They are... They using him as a power source... a _battery._ "

Even thinking Clint was not very fond of Loki, the mere sight before him was turning his stomach. The god looked ill, his skin ashen to match the dull circles around his eyes, his hair messed and chopped in a careless way to make room for the things attached to his head.

"This..." Thor whispered was he walked around the structure, "This machine is draining him!"

Once again Thor wanted to smash the thing to pieces and get his little brother away from it, but Clint also stopped him, "Let me help him! He is my brother!"

"Man, you don't understand," Clint pointed to the bindings holding Loki to the structure and the cables embedded to his body, "Some of those are pumping stuff into his body, see?" He was pointing towards those in the back of Loki's hands, "And many more are connected to the whole structure of this shit, we have to do this carefully or we might kill him in the process."

Clint refrained from feeling anything about it, he disliked Loki, that was sure, but Thor was their friend and he didn't want to see him out of control for accidently hurting his brother even more than he already was, Clint knew that a god freaking out was not something they could afford.

"Cap, this is Black Widow... We found their power source..."

"I got it, tell me you're joking." Steve had heard the whole thing through the coms with Tony.

"Not really," Natasha hissed, "We need Stark down here to figure how to set his thing off."

For a moment, there was no answer from Tony and Thor was about to yell in frustration, but an explosion followed by a curse reached the transmission and then Tony's voice.

"I'm on my way."

Clint and Natasha moved around the room to get information from the computers and files around while Thor jumped inside the structure and the platforms at either side were Loki was being held to be closer to him.

Thor reached for his brother's face and swallowed the fear he felt, ignoring the voice telling him that such action might break his brother as if made of glass. Foolish thought, he knew, but he was not being very rational at the moment. 

"Brother, Loki... can you hear me?"

Loki grunted and twitched, just barely. It seemed as if he was fighting for his body to obey him and it was taking a great deal of effort to process a reaction to Thor's voice calling for him. It took several more urgent calls from Thor's voice for Loki to open his eyes.

His vision was almost none existing, he couldn't properly see shapes and the colors were mixing, but he knew the voice calling for his attention, not sure if it was real.

"T-Thor?"

"Brother, we shall release you, just wait a little longer!"

Loki's eyes were barely open and he closed them again, breathing heavily and doing so brought him pain, but he ignored it, as he had been doing for a while now.

Thor stroke Loki's cheek, making him open his eyes again, but his sight was unfocused, not really seeing anything. He looked way too thin and his skin was too pale, even for him.

Clint and Natasha found enough information to confirm that Loki was being used as a power source, draining his energy in order to have the base operating. There were specific details of what they were doing to him and the process, even surveillance videos. Natasha copied all the information for them to have as backup and then proceed to wipe it from the system.

After a few minutes Iron Man reached the room and flew around the metal structure, hovering over Thor and Loki, studding the different connections.

"I need to turn off the system before getting this shit off him," He announced as and flew around the room to disconnect the different parts of the system.

Natasha was typing fast as she wiped the systems clean, but stopped for a moment when Iron Man started to work, "Stark, he is being drugged, if you turn all the system off he—" 

"—will feel everything." Tony confirmed.

No one said a word, but the murder intent on Thor's face told them what he was thinking. 

Once the last part of the system was shut down Tony went back to Thor and Loki. He started to disconnect the cables from his head and hands as carefully as he could.

"I don't have much time; the drug's effects will star to wear off soon..." Tony was mostly talking to himself; Thor wasn't listening, he was too focused on his brother.

"Brother, brother, please talk to me!"

Loki's dazed eyes reached Thor's again. It felt like a moment too long and Tony suddenly had to bite down the urge to make a sarcastic comment about him being interrupting something, so he reached for the binds holding Loki instead and tor them off. 

The trapped god hissed as the biddings were disconnected and Tony carefully lower him to the floor, the cables attached to his back and neck still there, but at least he was not hanging from the metal structure anymore.

Thor jumped off the platform and kneeled besides his brother. Tony kept Loki on his side as he disconnected the multiple cables; Loki's trembling confirmed Tony that he was starting to feel the pain from the process.

Loki's hand moved to reach Thor's and they shared a silent stare. Thor could see all the pain, anger and frustration Loki's eyes held, he was sharing this with him and him only, and Thor understood that the pain of being used as a _thing_ was hurting Loki as much as the pain from the act itself.

Tony had managed to disconnect half the cables fixed to Loki's back when the god gasped in pain, closing his eyes tightly and gripping his brother's hand as a life saver.

"Hang in there prankster, almost done..." Thor couldn't see Tony's eyes behind the mask, but he could picture his face in deep concentration as he worked.

When the last cable was removed from beneath his skin, Loki cried out, his whole body trembling with uncontrollable spasm. He forced himself into stillness, biting his lower lip to the point of bleeding.

Thor carefully scoop him on his arms, even as Loki weakly protested, but in the end he rested his head against this brother's chest and tensed up, his face a clear picture of pain.

"Time to blow this up," Clint pointed one of his explosives arrows to the center of the machine as the others exited the room and fired.

Captain America was ready when they reached the exit and together they joined Bruce in the aircraft, who having heard everything over his own com, got into doctor mode and between him and Tony managed to set Loki in a somehow comfortable position.

Natasha handed them the information about what had been done to Loki and they were talking about it during the flight, but Thor was not paying attention, he was too busy trying to keep his brother calm.

Thor kept running his fingers through Loki's hair, whispering random things to keep him distracted. Bruce was behind the trickster, carefully treating the wounds created by the extraction of the cables embedded to his body.

Loki closed his eyes and hissed; Thor could head Tony swearing as he pulled pieces of metal from under Loki's skin with a pair of tweezers and instructed Natasha to read out loud for him various sections of the information they got from the lab were Loki was being held.

"I g-got c-careless," Loki whispered with a broken laugh, "I-I-I..."

"Shsss, save your strength, brother."

Loki gave Thor a look filled with hurt, but it was not directed at his brother, Thor was not sure what Loki was thinking, and when his brother finally voiced it out, the god of thunder had no answer.

"They r-robbed me of my very essence, Thor... and I c-could not s-stop them!" There was anger in his voice, and hate mixed with sadness in his eyes.

Thor just held him, and he more of less calmed down, after a few minutes Loki closed his eyes and promptly passed out.

\---

It took the help of another two medical experts, hours of careful work and a great deal of anesthesia to finally extract all the implants under Loki's skin.

Tony felt sick, but he managed to keep his poker face as he studied the pieces and compare them against the information Natasha got from the enemy.

Bruce got the test results of all the substance running through Loki's blood stream and made a face.

"This looks bad," He showed the results to Tony, who sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"You know I always say Loki deserves a severe knock in the head to stop with all his bullshit?"

"Yes..."

"Well, this? This is not what I meant." Tony rested his hands on the table to support himself, "Has Thor ever mentioned something similar to drug use in Asgard?"

Bruce bit his lip and shook his head, "Not really, maybe just those used by healers, I'm not sure to be honest."

"Well, I don't think Loki is going to take this well," Tony pointed to the test results, "That is going to be one hell of a withdraw."

They exchanged looks for a minute and it was Bruce who made the call to Fury to let him know that it was going to be required for Loki to be restrained even in his sleep, because they had no idea how a withdraw was going to do to him, but they were sure that is was not going to be pleasant, for any of them.

"We will need to give him something to cope with it; some of this shit is very dangerous to deal with." Tony ran a hand through his hair, "I don't want to witness it."

Bruce gave him a sympathetic look but say nothing.

Tony turned around and proceeded to get in the task to figure out what exactly that bizarre technology was going to the Norse god, if someone could figure it out, it was him.

\---

Natasha was staring at a wall, her arms crossed over her chest and a blank expression adorned her face. She had been like this for a while now, still but alert.

She didn't react when the screams started, or when Bruce and Tony rushed to where Loki was, but she heard every single scream, making a mental picture as if she was standing in the room.

She could picture Loki's eyes wide with the dread of phantom terrors, non existing shapes that crawled in his skin, the light he could see and the voices that couldn't reach him.

He was screaming in a language she couldn't understand, but the language of fear, dread, hate and confusion was almost universal, she didn't need to know the meaning of the words Loki was screaming to understand them.

There was a moment in which Thor had to exit the room and walk away, probably to break something in order to not go mad. He walked pass Natasha and they didn't even exchanged looks, she just let him go.

The whole place shook when Loki gave one long and excruciated scream, one Natasha has heard only in those at Death's door, and then there was silence.

It was as if the world had stood still for a whole dreadful second, but as Loki's heart beat again, it kept on moving. 

Natasha closed her eyes and couldn't help but wonder what monsters chased Loki's in his withdrawal, even when the rational part of her mind assured her that she for sure didn't want to know.

\---

Thor was with Loki when another hallucination assaulted him and it was only by chance that Thor didn't got hurt as his brother's Juton nature surfaced. 

Crimson eyes were watching an enemy only Loki could see, and the ice frosting every corner of the room, the temperature dropped to reflect the cold and empty place Loki thought he was in.

"Brother," Thor whispered as he took Loki's hand in his, not caring about the intense cold burning him because Loki was not in control of his power, "You are not there, brother, come back to me..."

Loki closed his eyes and a few tears made its way down his cheeks, turning into ice halve way, but Thor didn't let go of him and the warm of his touch spread to Loki, he was no longer burning him.

Thor stared into his brother's eyes as their turned from his phantom tormentor to him, from crimson to green, even when his skin was still blue, Aesir and Juton at the same time. 

"Hey..." Thor whispered, "Welcome back."

Loki blinked, as if seeing Thor for the first time and sighed in content, feeling safe.

Thor knew something had changed for when his brother didn't protested when Thor didn't let go of his hand, and because he felt conformable in the silence between them.

As the ice melted, Loki somehow knew things were going to be fine and when Thor's touch colored him Aesir again, he felt that his magic was recovering.

It was going to take him time to fully replace what had been robbed from him, but the knowledge that it was going to happen was good enough.

For now.


End file.
